


ligare

by DeHeerKonijn, Roselightfairy



Series: Velle [4]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Dwarf Culture & Customs, Established Relationship, Fluff, Hair Braiding, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, text and images
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:42:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25336318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeHeerKonijn/pseuds/DeHeerKonijn, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roselightfairy/pseuds/Roselightfairy
Summary: Legolas is determined to navigate the complexity of dwarven wedding traditions as best he can. After all the grace with which Gimli handled their elven wedding, it is the least he can do . . . even if it proves to be more difficult than he could have expected.(Gimli has no complaints.)
Relationships: Gimli (Son of Glóin)/Legolas Greenleaf
Series: Velle [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1814452
Comments: 74
Kudos: 475





	ligare

**Author's Note:**

> Finally they get their second wedding! This story is also based on one of DeHeerKonijn’s headcanons about braids, beads, and the boxes that hold them. ;) We spent so much time on elvish wedding customs, we thought we should give them at least a little role reversal in this very last story. See the endnotes for a picture of their two beautiful boxes in full colorful glory.
> 
> And... this is the last Velle appendix! We are so sad to let it go, but we always love talking to you about this ‘verse, either in the comments or on any of our other social media profiles (Tumblr for both of us, Twitter for DeHeerKonijn, Dreamwidth for Roselightfairy, all under the same usernames as over here). Please feel free to get in touch or keep an eye on us over there for more about other projects, individual and together. Thank you all so much for coming on this journey with us. <3

If Legolas was forced to restart this box one more time, he was going to scream.

He gritted his teeth and stared down at the knife in his hand, squinting to try to bring his blurred vision into clearer focus – but perhaps he had stared at it for too long, for wood and knife alike swam before his eyes until he was forced to shut them and wait for his head to clear again.

He knew it was dwarvish custom to craft the bead-box for one’s spouse – that, even if no one said as much to him, it would be considered a sign of disrespect if he chose to commission Gimli’s box instead of making it himself. Perhaps they would have understood, had he insisted that he lacked the skill – but already so many rules had been bent for him that he would not ask for anything more, any further reason for the dwarves to shake their heads at him.

And anyway, could he have borne it? To give Gimli something so personal, crafted by another? It might not have quite the same weight for elves as for dwarves, but Legolas felt for himself the desire to give Gimli something he had made with his own hands.

At least, he had felt it weeks ago, when Gimli had told him of the tradition. Now, glaring down at the wood in his hands – his fourth try, after ruining the last three – he fought the urge to burn it up before he had even begun.

Wood should not be this difficult! Legolas had some skill in carving, at least: he could make arrow-shafts, keep his bow in repair – even carve the handle of a knife in haste, if he could find something sharp to use as a blade. If learning the ways of metal-craft was beyond his abilities – at least in the few weeks between now and their wedding – he might at least make a passable box out of wood.

So he had thought.

He glared down at the piece of wood in his hands – meant to become the lid, if he could ever manage to hollow it out properly, let alone fit it over the base. For some reason, though his hands held steady at the draw of a bow, could nock an arrow without a notch for the string or a single waver, he could not seem to keep them from trembling around the handle of this hook knife.

He closed his eyes again and took a steadying breath. He _would_ manage this. He might be clumsy in the strangely-weighted dwarven wedding robes; his tongue might fumble the Khuzdul of the vows; he might lack the skill with gems and metal to fashion the hair-beads themselves – but he _would_ make his husband a wedding gift to be proud of.

With renewed determination, he opened his eyes and firmed his grip on the handle of the knife, then lowered it to make the first cut.

It made a single notch in the wood before slipping immediately to the side with a splintering scrape.

Legolas dropped knife and wood alike before he could do any more damage – on accident, or intentionally – and hissed a Sindarin curse.

“Legolas?” There was a tap on the door, but it did not open. Legolas supposed his companions had learned _that_ lesson. “Is all well with you?”

Hastily, he bent to scoop up the knife and wood he had dropped, attempting to straighten up the pile of shavings at his feet as well as his expression. “Yes – I am well,” he called back.

A pause, then, “May I come in?”

He sighed. “Yes.”

Hadril pushed open the door between the room he had chosen as his workshop and her guest chambers. Legolas did not share the chambers with her – he slept in his own rooms with Gimli when he visited Aglarond – but she had accompanied him to stand with him at his wedding, and it was tradition that Gimli should not see his gift until it was finished, so she had generously agreed to share her space with him to work.

Perhaps she was coming to regret that, Legolas thought as he watched her eyes sweep over his discarded efforts and finally come to rest on his face. Her eyebrows went up.

“I am trying to make Gimli’s wedding present,” he explained. “I am . . . not succeeding.”

“His wedding present?” She bent to pick up one of the lids he had mangled.

“It is dwarvish tradition – the couple will change one another’s braids. We have already done that,” he tugged on the marriage braid at the nape of his neck, “but we have not made the beads to braid into them. I lack the skill to do that, but dwarves prize the boxes the beads are stored in nearly as much as the beads themselves. I had thought I had enough skill in woodcraft to manage that, at least, but” – he looked down at his pitiful efforts with a sigh – “it seems I do not.”

She crossed the room to take the lid from his hands. “Boxes are different from bows,” she remarked. Before he could respond with something cutting, she picked up the knife and mimed a scraping motion. “You do not have the curved form already to give shape to the motion, but you must still move at an angle. You are trying to cut directly into it.”

“Hadril,” he said, looking at his cousin more closely. “Have you skill in decorative woodcraft that you have not shared with me?”

She winked. “I cannot share _all_ my secrets.”

“But you can share this one?” he said hopefully. Perhaps this could be the answer – he might not need to confess his shortcomings as a husband to any of the dwarves who were already waiting for him to make a mistake; if she could teach him enough at least that he could make this box on his own –

“Well,” she said. “I suppose I have nothing better to do than wait for your wedding. And if this will make you any more bearable in the coming days, I would be remiss not to offer my aid.” She pulled the other chair in the room around to seat herself across from him. “Let us begin, then.”

* * *

* * *

Gimli wondered if this was how Legolas had felt, waking up the morning after their elven wedding night.

The sun streamed in through the wide windows of their room in Aglarond just as it had that day in Minas Tirith. Gimli had never before craved a chamber with windows, but he had come to understand the appeal whenever he cracked his eyes open to the sun-warmed figure of Legolas lying beside him, the way the rays danced across his skin and softened his hair. Now, he blinked his eyes open to find Legolas nose-to-nose with him, already awake and gazing at him with a wide, contented smile.

“Good morning,” he murmured. “Husband.”

Gimli shuddered happily at the word. Legolas had used it before, but always it had been a reminder of the ceremony yet to come, the final bond yet to be made. Now there was nothing standing in the way of that truth, no barrier between them. They belonged to one another, truly and completely, in every way.

He kissed Legolas instead of responding, but found he was smiling too hard even to deepen the kiss; their mouths slipped apart and Legolas brushed a teasing finger down Gimli’s nose. “And what a good morning it is.”

Gimli buried his face in Legolas’s neck instead of responding, glorying in warm skin and the fresh-water scent of him. “I love you,” was all he could say.

“Mmm.” Legolas smacked a kiss against the top of Gimli’s head. “And I love you.”

His hair brushed Gimli’s face as he moved, and Gimli raised a hand to catch a few strands, reveling in the silk-smooth glide between his fingers. How long had he waited to braid his gems into that hair? And now this morning it was finally time.

“May I braid your hair?” he asked. Nothing else might have coaxed him out of the warm morning languor but this: the thought of leaning over to the boxes lined up on the bedside table, side by side as they were meant to be, and threading the beads he had so carefully crafted into his husband’s golden hair.

Legolas’s fingers wound into Gimli’s hair in turn, and Gimli could hear the smile in his voice when he responded. “Always.”

Gimli had imagined this moment in many ways since he was young – since he had first learned the wedding customs and recognized in his own heart that open space that waited for another. He had been a guest at weddings before, seen many a friend emerge from their chambers the next day with new braids and a newly-joyful smile, and all the while he had contented himself with dreaming of the day his turn would come.

In all his youthful imaginings, he had not dreamed of this – had not thought of a wooden bead-box shaped by a new and eager hand, of boring careful holes into his beads to better grip fine elven hair. Had not thought he would need to prop himself up on pillows merely to reach his too-tall husband’s hair.

But there was much about his wedding – and his marriage – that he could never have imagined. And yet every day he spent with Legolas: holding him through his sorrows and being held in turn, laughing over the smallest things and the delight in one another’s company – learning one another’s bodies and hearts and souls to the deepest, beautiful depths – every day was a small surprise, a new treasure. Every day he fell deeper in love.

And as he sat now with his hands in Legolas’s hair, breaking off his braiding to plant kisses over his bare shoulders and listening to the bright, melodic humming of an elf overcome with bliss, he thought he could never have imagined anything better than this.

**Author's Note:**

> 


End file.
